Daily Archives: October 24, 2013

My father, who died earlier this year at the ripe old age of 90, had a life that was as varied as it was long.

He served in the Italian campaign in the Second World War, then became an Anglican clergyman, a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and subsequently dean of St John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong. For 21 years he was principal of Morley College, an institute of adult education, in London, and finally director of a large charitable foundation. In his retirement he returned to his first love, church history, completing a project on Restoration church courts that he had put aside 30 years previously and ending his career with seven entries on Restoration Anglican divines for the Dictionary of National Biography, which was published in his 81st year. (“Not my period” he would always declare stoutly when asked a question about a historical event that fell outside the late 17th century, although in fact he wrote what is still a standard history of the movement for Christian unity.)

At the age of 85 he was awarded the rare degree of doctor of divinity by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a ceremony at Lambeth Palace at which Rowan Williams preached a fire-breathing sermon on the threat of secularism, little knowing that my father had long ceased to be a believer.

[I was listening to the speaker on 60 minutes and he said the following}…

:“I have ”“ one teacher I remember was an elderly Jesuit at Xavier (high school in New York City) from Boston. He had a Boston accent. Father Tom Matthews, and he taught me a lesson that I’ve recounted in some of my speeches. He taught me what I refer to as the Shakespeare principle.

The class was reading one of the Shakespeare plays, ”˜Hamlet’ or whatever, and one of my classmates or whatever, sort of smart aleck kid, John Antonelli, as I recall. It’s ridiculous I would remember his name. But [John] made some really smart aleck sophomoric criticism of the play, and Father Matthews looked down at him and he said, with his Boston accent, ”˜Mister, when you read Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s not on trial. You are.’”

And so it was for me and Flannery O’Connor. As I read her work, Flannery O’Connor was not on trial. I was. Sheepishly, I have to admit that I had similarly grossly misjudged the great G.K. Chesterton in the past (see my previous post “Finding My Way to Orthodoxy” http://acatholicthinker.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/finding-my-way-to-orthodoxy/). The work of Flannery O’Connor could be harsh, violent and discomfiting. And yet it is also thick with truth, grace and redemption. To the superficial reader, a yarn filled with unattractive figures on ill-fated endeavors may be all that is perceived. But to those willing to consider her work more deeply, powerful themes of deeply religious truths become apparent. Perhaps the greatest and most pervasive of these truths in Flannery’s stories is the pain, suffering and “meanness” that often accompanies the beautiful grace of God.

The wedding party stood outside the church, eagerly awaiting the ceremonious arrival of the bride. Instead, drive-by shooters killed four, including two children and the groom’s mother, and injured 18.

Beyond its poignancy, the attack in Cairo’s industrial neighborhood of Warraq was significant for being one of the first to target Egypt’s Christians specifically, versus the now-common attacks on their church buildings.

“Since the revolution, this is the first instance Coptic people were targeted randomly in a church, with weapons,” said Mina Magdy, general coordinator for the Maspero Youth Union, a mostly Coptic revolutionary group formed in response to church burnings in 2011 after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

[Same Sex Practice]…goes against the teachings of the Bible and should not be admitted to the Church, conservative Anglican leaders have said.

Gathering in Nairobi for week-long Global Anglican Future Conference, the clergy on Monday said they would preach for adherence to the teachings of the Bible and do not support the infiltration of “secularising” influences.

Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counsellor who works out of her narrow three-story home on a Tokyo back street. Aoyama, 52, is trying to cure what Japan’s media calls sekkusu shinai shokogun, or “celibacy syndrome”. Japan’s under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren’t even dating, and increasing numbers can’t be bothered with sex.

Japan’s under-40s won’t go forth and multiply out of duty, as postwar generations did. The country is undergoing major social transition after 20 years of economic stagnation. It is also battling against the effects on its already nuclear-destruction-scarred psyche of 2011’s earthquake, tsunami and radioactive meltdown. There is no going back. “Both men and women say to me they don’t see the point of love. They don’t believe it can lead anywhere,” says Aoyama. “Relationships have become too hard.”

Japan’s punishing corporate world makes it almost impossible for women to combine a career and family, while children are unaffordable unless both parents work. Cohabiting or unmarried parenthood is still unusual, dogged by bureaucratic disapproval.

Conference members have been enjoying the outstanding venue of All Saints Cathedral, its Trinity Conference Centre and grounds festooned with tents for meals, stands for 44 exhibiting organisations and a street craft market. There are one hundred patient volunteers of whom eighty are members of the cathedral congregation.

The Dean and the Church Council have closed all other Cathedral activities for the week and taken a bank loan of Â£100,000 to pay for the extra facilities. The overall impression is that this is how a Cathedral and its precincts can be used to resource the whole Church.

There were nine day long ‘mini-conferences’ …on Islam, Marriage and Family, Theological Education, Aid and Development.

It was ably demonstrated from history and contemporary analysis that the West is be default proclaiming a gospel of cheap grace. That means proclaiming a faith without repentance, and which therefore requires no forgiveness; a grace that is self bestowed, not given by God, and therefore a presumption. All this has flowed from the man-centredness from Kant onwards, where ”˜maturity’ implies autonomy and entitlement, leading to rights without duties, and a narcissism that responds to any challenge with irrational rage.

The fruit of this non-gospel is a worldly church promoting itself to others with an attractive mix of technological and financial superiority, but worldly in its theology. It only proclaims as sin things that culture is willing to concede are has, like racism or injustice; what it won’t do is challenge what culture approves. Many examples of the fruit of this were given, from places now persecuted over it.

This morning I stopped to chat with John W Yates III of Holy Trinity Church in Raleigh, N.C.. John was a former study assistant to John Stott and we talked about Uncle John’s influence on North American Anglicans.

Strokes are increasingly killing younger people, especially in developing countries where unhealthy lifestyle habits have taken hold, according to a study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

While strokes are usually thought to afflict older people, the number of people ages 20 to 64 who experience them has risen by 25 percent in the past two decades, according to researchers from countries including the U.S., U.K. and Japan. This younger group now makes up 31 percent of total strokes, compared with 25 percent before 1990, the study found.

O God, our Father, we are exceedingly frail, and indisposed to every virtuous and gallant undertaking: Strengthen our weakness, we beseech thee, that we may do valiantly in this spiritual war; help us against our own negligence and cowardice, and defend us from the treachery of our unfaithful hearts; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.